WANdisco in record British Gas data deal success

Sheffield software specialist WANdisco has signed a £500,000 contract with British Gas - its largest Big Data deal to date.

The UK’s largest utilities and home services provider has significantly scaled up its dealings with WANdisco after a trial was announced in March last year.

It enabled British Gas to capture real-time data from more than 1m household Smart Meters.

WANdisco demonstrated cost savings in data storage and processing and minimised data loss and downtime in compliance with regulations.

That success has led to the energy giant signing a three-year contract which will see WANdisco’s Non-Stop Hadoop system going live. It will capture data from 2m homes.

David Richards, WANdisco chief executive, said: “This deal clearly demonstrates our ability to expand a small initial deployment into a much larger deal.

“Customers see our Hadoop technology as critical for enterprise big data deployments. Enlarging our footprint with existing customers like British Gas, in addition to gathering new customers, is a very important part of our strategy. ”

British Gas says real-time analytics from its Connected Homes programme will allow it to match energy supply with demand.

The deal follows contract wins for WANdisco with the consumer data firm behind Tesco Clubcard and a global US-based credit card and financial services company and.

In its third quarter booking’s update, the business reported record sales, climbing 56 per cent on the preceding quarter and 21 per cent year-on-year.

While investment in its technology has kept WANdisco’s bottom line in the red, analysts are enthusiastic about the company’s prospects.